The Fracking War's final battles - banda music and finishing Section V

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - The Mexican work crew outside my window is blaring banda music (mixed with occasional techno crap) loud enough that I am considering breaking with all Mexican protocols and telling them to, well, SHUT UP!

An hour ago I finished the last chapter of the fourth of five sections of The Fracking War, which was infinitely satisfying on one level, and a dreaded moment on another.

Satisfying to finish because so far the book holds together just fine. Unsatisfying because now all the various characters, situations, dramas and themes are all crowding together like characters from a Charles Dickens' novel, racing towards the final chapter.

Dickens used to keep careful track of every character and by the end of each of his novels, the fate of that character would be accounted for. Some critics say he once added a chapter just to account for a dog who appeared briefly at the beginning of a book.

I only have one dog in The Fracking War, a female Labrador who I will not forget.

The last section of The Fracking War will get sketched out in the next couple of days here, in the relative quiet of my condo. The actual writing will (Dios lo permite) in Sacramento.

And the next segment takes me to the Bronx. I am not kidding, I just write what the characters tell me.

Oops, back to the drafting/redrafting. The music just stopped and the only sound is the ocean.

Ahhhhhhhhh...

Cross Bronx Expressway

The end is in sight for The Fracking War ... maybe

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - Five more chapters remain to be written in the fourth segment of The Fracking War.

EPA says this is ok to drink

Time is moving fast now, as the different threads in the narrative - political corruption, pollution, poisonings, health problems, personal betrayals, death of innocent people and even a little romance - are simultaneously unraveling and yet being tied up together.

A fifth section of 10-15 chapters will be written when I am back in California.

Most of the action in the book takes place on the New York-Pennsylvania border where hydrofracking in the arguably real world is close to igniting a shooting war between opponents of this dirty technology and the gasbags who want it - mostly to line their pockets. The gasbags couldn't care less about pollution and the deaths of innocents. Or the destruction of the environment. They almost seem to want it.

Sick.

In this regard, The Fracking War is having trouble keeping up with the ongoing real war in NY.

Weeks ago, I wrote that the characters in the book were seesawing between a happy or tragic ending. The seesaw is still in motion, though perhaps a roulette wheel would be a better image.

Perhaps both will be intertwined in one big bang of a finish.

Hmm... a big bang... Now there's a thought.

The Fracking War may end with an even bigger bang

Winter doesn't slow down the fighting in 'The Fracking War'

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - A 10-day writing layoff (more or less) had me terrified this morning when I first sat down to write.

Homer Simpson is helping me write today

I was sure I would not be able to pick up the thread of The Fracking War where I left off and move it along to its denouement.

I should have had more confidence. I banged out a chapter in less than an hour and probably have it in me to do one more today.

One challenge though was writing about things happening in the snowy winter in NY and Pennsylvania. Not snowy here.

Last night I received good news from an amiga - a novelista also - that her book is going to be reviewed by a literary agent, the same agent I hope I will be able to get interested in my tome. But she said one of things she had to provide - besides the manuscript - was a synopsis of the book.

Santa Crappo! I have to write a summary of my book?

You might think that would be easy. Perhaps it will be. But that synopsis won't be written until I write another 25,000 words (more or less). It's taking me a little longer to get to the maybe-happy, but more likely not-very-happy ending.

It is a story about hydrofracking, a war, and despoiling the earth, after all.

Hmm...  "More likely not-very-happy ending" sounds, well, more likely.

On to Chapter 13 in the fourth section of the book which is titled Archaea Rising. At least in Chapter 12 people were happy, swilling champagne and celebrating. They won't be happy when Chapter 13 starts.

Damned hydrofracking.

The Fracking War - a Never-Ending Story for researchers

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - Just about the time I get my research ducks all quacking in the same chorus, I run across more research about hydrofracking, more stories about political corruption, and more cases of illness and disease linked to this rather nasty, out-of-control technology.

For many thousands of words, I have consistently said - or more correctly my characters have said - that hydrofracking uses about a million gallons of water per well drilled. Out of that, about half to two-thirds comes back up as wastewater. The wastewater is a nasty cocktail with the toxic chemicals in it that the gas companies put down plus a healthy dose of radiation and other toxic crap from thousands of feet below the earth's surface.

Even more the Morlocks oppose hydrofracking

At least that's what I thought.

It turns out that in fact many of these wells are using a lot more than a million gallons.

In Michigan, a new fracking record was just set with a well using 21 million gallons. That's not a typo - 21 million gallons of water. Doing the math that says from that well alone about 10-15 million gallons of water came back up and needs to be disposed of in a toxic waste area. Or as gas companies have been doing in Ohio and other places, simply dumped back into the ground in deep disposal wells.

Better hope the Morlocks living underground don't mind.

In the meantime, I have to finish this book before it's discovered this technology causes earthquakes.

Oh crap, researchers already concluded that.

The dilemma starts: A happy fracking ending, tragic - or both

ROCKWELL VALLEY, Pennsylvania, USA - Today marks a significant milestone in The Fracking War. The third segment of the book (tentatively called Heroes and Villains) is done (in draft) and so the planning/drafting starts for what I think will be the final piece of this novel/puzzle.

I began feverishly writing the first chapter of the last section an hour ago, then decided I needed to let the just-finished chapters digest some before I move on.

But I can still plan. Oh, can I plan!

Part IV will have mostly the same characters - except for those already killed, taken in custody, disappeared, or kidnapped. And after 60,000-plus words of drama, intrigue, corruption episodes and toxic spills, the last segment will carry a denouement with a decidedly science fiction bent.

Like the rest of the book, the last part is snatched from daily headlines. It won't be a stretch at all to present my theory of what's ahead. Reading the conclusions of most scientists (those not in the pocket of natural gas companies) is probably as frightening as the scenario my characters are assembling in my head as I write this.

The Fracking War novel is winding down. The real war on fracking is ramping up.